In the past, the raking of large quantities of leaves, for example on estates, has generally required the manual raking of leaves in local areas onto burlap cloths or the like, with the thus loaded burlap cloths being manually dragged to a curbside for removal by truck. Such manual transporting loads of leaves to the curbside is extremely time consuming, usually requiring a number of persons to complete a leaf removal operation in a reasonable time.
While various raking and other attachments are known, they are not adaptable to the performance of the above described task. Thus, U.S. Pat. No. 2,268,250, Gormley et al, discloses a brush and rake adapted to be driven by a small power unit that is alternatively adapted to drive a lawn mower. U.S. Pat. No. 2,511,642, Law, discloses a wheeled hay rake. U.S. Pat. No. 2,647,356, Adams, discloses a single unit hay rake adapted to be attached to a tractor. U.S. Pat. No. 2,898,724, Robinson, discloses a unitary powered lawn rake adapted to be bolted to a tractor or lawn mower. U.S. Pat. No. 3,417,554, Sudhoff, discloses a single unit power rake for removing thatch from grass. U.S. Pat. No. 3,436,847, Grimes, discloses a snow plow adapted to be attached to a tractor. U.S. Pat. No. 3,789,590, Wilson, discloses a unitary powered rake. U.S. Pat. No. 4,130,952, Dion, discloses a plow adapted to be attached to a tiller. U.S. Pat. No. 4,322,936, Whitney, discloses a unitary powered raking device with a rake intermediate the front and rear wheels.
In spite of the knowledge of such devices for many years, the current practice in raking leaves has remained as I have discussed above.